ight.
Those who have proved themselves incapable of regulating their lives
properly, should be grateful, should they not, to their friends for
taking the trouble off their hands, and quietly follow their advice;
but I fancy sometimes that their kind intentions have come too late for
me."

"Too late? I must combat that assertion. Fourteen years have passed
since we last met, and if you did not then make yourself younger than
you were, you can hardly now have reached the prime of life."

"Make myself younger! Good heavens! to do just the contrary would then
have conduced more to my interests. But of what are you reminding me
Eugenie?"

"Is your betrothed young, handsome amiable?" she quickly resumed; "I
would not ask these questions which imply a doubt, if you had not told
me that you had authorized your friend to dispose of your heart, and in
these matters friends are not always to be relied on."

"You greatly wrong our most amiable host," he said laughingly; "Not
only are these cardinal virtues not wanting, but all three of them are
three times combined."

"Three times?"

"I mean in three different samples, as I have been told; so it will be
difficult to choose."

"And each of the three young ladies is desperately in love with you?
Then a twofold catastrophe is inevitable."

"Up to this hour none of my destined brides know of my existence. Their
father----"

"So they are sisters?"

"Yes. A fair, an auburn, and a dark haired one. You see there is no
possibility of escape; Every taste is provided for. Early to-morrow the
merciless disposer of my heart, and hand takes me in his carriage, and
delivers me over to my destiny. They live in L---- not quite four hours
drive from this. Horse dealing is to be the pretext. The father who is
the doctor of that small town, has a thorough-bred grey Arab in his
stables."

"You go forth as Saul the son of Kish. I hope you may return like him
with a kingdom."

"If you but knew," he said pensively, "how little I covet that dignity:
is not a king fettered by his duties? To-day I am still free, so I take
the liberty of sitting down beside you, and of talking with you of that
happy time when I too was held captive, but by enchanting fetters."

She remained silent while he threw himself into the second arm-chair,
and turned it so that he could see nothing of the company in the
saloon; but only the plants before him, and the charming face of the
young woman, lighted up by th